


Cocktails for two

by S_Horne



Series: A May Medley [25]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, recovering Tony Stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-18 01:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18975928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/S_Horne/pseuds/S_Horne
Summary: “Can I get you any drinks?”Tony couldn’t help his flinch. Six days out of seven, the question didn’t bother him, but on that final one, it was the worst one of all.Steve reached out across the table top and took his hand. “No, thank you,” he answered the waiter, perfectly casually as though nothing was wrong. His thumb soothed over the back of Tony’s hand. “Just water for the table at the moment.”ORNational Wine Day





	Cocktails for two

**Author's Note:**

> This is the missing one. So sorry, lovelies.

  
It had been one of those days. The kind that had seemed like it was going on forever and ever and that it would never end. There had been meeting after meeting in the morning, an investors meal with a bunch of dinosaurs that had spent the entire afternoon making snide comments towards Tony that he wasn’t allowed to snap back to, and then he’d ripped one of his favourite shirts on his way to meet Steve. 

The whole day had been a disaster and it was a reminder of why Tony used to drink. The slight tremor in his hand only got worse as he got more frustrated and the urge to throw himself off the wagon with an insane amount of strength was getting harder to control. 

Eighteen months sober and he was still struggling with remembering why when the resignation started to set in. It would be so easy to just give in and pour a bottle down his throat. Any stress he’d had, any worries or angers that had built up throughout the day would all vanish for one blissful evening.

The only thing that kept him going was the date that he and Steve had planned. 

The whole thing had blossomed out of the blue. Steve and Tony had known each other for years, had always moved in the same circles thanks to mutual friends, but they’d never clicked particularly specially. Until one day when Tony had seemed to wake up and seen what had been staring him in the face. It was Steve that kept him strong.

 

*  


“Can I get you any drinks?” 

Tony couldn’t help his flinch. Six days out of seven, the question didn’t bother him, but on that final one, it was the worst one of all. 

Steve reached out across the table top and took his hand. “No, thank you,” he answered the waiter, perfectly casually as though nothing was wrong. His thumb soothed over the back of Tony’s hand. “Just water for the table at the moment.”

When the waiter had left, Tony slumped. “I’m sorry. You can have something if you want.”

“I’m debating it,” Steve said and before Tony could feel too betrayed, he carried on. “My options are a cola or a lemonade. Tricky decisions to be made.”

Tony’s lips curved into a grin, relief crashing over him. He squeezed Steve’s hand and relaxed. “I’d go lemonade; it’s a little lighter. I think I’ll get some sort of juice.”

“Good choice. Orange?”

“I’m feeling frisky tonight. Maybe grapefruit.”

 

//

  


“Oh, _shit_!” Tony froze in horror as he felt liquid pour down his back, ice cubes bouncing to the floor and goosebumps prickling over his skin. “Cold. That was cold. Holy shit; it’s so cold.” 

“Oh my God!” The voice from behind Tony was more like a shriek, terrified and wobbly. There was no movement for a long moment, the restaurant suddenly silent around them. As an entire tray of drinks soaked through his blazer, Tony sat perfectly still in a weak attempt to lessen the impact. “I’m sorry. Oh, _god_. I’m so, _so_  sorry. I tripped over the chair leg – I couldn’t see over the tray and… I’m – oh, God.” 

Tony winced as the cold liquid dripped down his spine, shirt sticking to his back. He let his eyes fall closed and tried desperately to count to ten instead of just leaping into the air and yelling.

“It’s okay,” he managed to stutter out. The suit was an old one and he didn’t particularly care about it. What Tony did care about was the smell of alcohol thick in the air and dancing up to his nose. “Let me just…”

It was all he needed on a day like the one he’d had.

Tony felt rooted to the spot, anger burning in the pit of his stomach at his rotten luck, even as Steve jumped up from his chair to help.

“No, Sir,” the waitress hastened to say, springing into action. “Please sit down. One of the glasses broke – I can’t have you hurt yourself on it. It’s okay, I can manage.”

“Look at this mess. Ugh, this shit is going to stain.” Tony plucked at the wet material sticking to his shoulder and crinkled his nose. Disappointment set in, curling its way around his shoulders just as the alcohol was doing. It seeped down to bones, the coldness more pleasurable than the taunt of the booze. It was an assault on his senses as dozens of unique scents twisted together and beckoned Tony in. A siren’s call. “Just the perfect end to my day.”

“I’m so sorry, Sir.” The girl quickly threw her empty tray onto the table with a loud thud. She bent down and started to pick up the fallen glasses, pieces of fruit, and straws that littered the floor. Her hands shook as she did, glasses chinking against each other in an almost deafening symphony. “I really didn’t mean to do it.”

Tony’s head was spinning. The stench of booze was almost overpowering and the image of spending one-too-many nights in the same drenched clothes sprung to his mind. He had been doing so well to not end up back in that state and yet, of course, it had happened. Perfectly innocently, but it had happened nonetheless.

On a date with Steve, even, which was the very last place that Tony would have ever wished to have a panic attack. One was definitely starting; he could feel it in the way his breathing changed pattern and the pricking at the back of his neck. He was either going to be sick or start crying.

Neither of those options were attractive, but they were also a damn sight better than turning around and licking his own shoulder.

“No, seriously it’s fine. It’s only a bit of alcohol,” he said, any anger he felt softening when he looked down and saw the expression on the waitress’s face. He swallowed thickly and forced his next words out. “It never hurt anyone.” 

“I’m going to get fired,” the waitress said, sniffing loudly, down on her hands and knees. “I really didn’t mean to, Sir.”

“Oh, hey.” Tony got off his chair quickly and bent down next to her. As harsh as it was, her pain gave Tony something to focus on and he tried to channel his energy into comforting the young girl. “Don’t cry. It’s fine! Come on, you won’t get fired. I won’t let them fire you.”

She sniffed and wiped her nose with her forearm, shaking her head. Before she could protest, Tony shook his arm, little droplets of sticky cocktails flying out, and plastered on a smile he didn’t feel.

“It’s just liquid. It will come out.” Tony paused and squinted, twisting to look up at Steve. “It will come out, won’t it?”

When Steve nodded slowly, clearly a little stunned, Tony turned back to the waitress. “See? We’re all good. Hey. Come on. It was just a mistake. They happen. Not to me, granted, but they happen.”

Even as he gave a cheeky smile, Tony shivered as the cold of the drinks started to set in. He was going to needed at least seven showers with the water turned as high as it could go in order to scrub himself clean. Not only did he need to get rid of the sticky juice that made up the cocktails, but he needed to never smell those tell-tale scents of booze on his body again.

Just being that close to the mixture of smells was making his heart pound and his stomach churned threateningly. Concentrating on their waitress hadn’t helped him enough and Tony could still feel the burning threat of a panic attack. He could also feel Steve’s worried stare boring into the side of his head.

“You’re fine,” Tony said to the waitress, trying to convince her as much as himself, refusing to look back. “It’s fine. _I’m_ fine.”

It was true. It wasn’t as true as Tony would have liked, but it wasn’t a complete lie either.

Because it was only alcohol, after all. Tony could do it; he could manage a little shot of booze trickling down his back. As long as he didn’t fall back into that trap, so long as he didn’t turn his head and poke out his tongue. He shook his head sharply and stood up. When Steve made to follow him, still eerily silent, Tony held up a hand.

He needed to be on his own.

“I’m just gonna go clean up and dry off. It’s fine. Have you got this clean-up?”

The young girl sniffed loudly and nodded. “Yes, Sir. Again, I’m really–”

“It’s not a problem,” Tony said with a calmness he was nowhere near to feeling. “It never hurt anybody.”

 

//

 

As Tony walked back to their table, he noticed that Steve was staring up at him with a soft smile on his face.

“What?” Tony asked, eyes narrowed in suspicion. He’d been gone for a while, scrubbing desperately at his back to try and remove as much of the alcohol as he could. Though probably not the best thing for the material, Tony had dumped his shirt in the sink and wet it through before doing his best to dry it under the hand-dryer. It had worked quite well, but he’d discarded his blazer completely. It was far too thick and he didn’t have a chance of getting the stench of booze out in a restaurant’s bathroom with cheap hand soap and not much else.

“Nothing,” Steve said lightly, not losing his smile as he lifted his water to his lips and took a long sip.

Tony squinted at him in disbelief, but gave in without fighting. As he pulled his chair out slowly and sat down, he was relieved to see that all traces of the accident had been cleaned up. His chair was dry, there was no debris of fallen drinks on the floor, and their tablecloth had been changed.

“Seriously,” Tony said when he looked back up to see Steve still smiling at him. “What?”

“You handled that so well.”

Tony swallowed and looked down at the candle flickering in the middle of the table. He watched it for a long moment, concentrating on the way it danced and twisted. “I nearly lost it. Really. Felt myself going pretty drastically, actually. Wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”

“It was perfect,” Steve said, voice impossibly soft. “I mean it, sweetheart. You could have screamed and yelled.”

“I was tempted.” Tony pressed his lips together and shrugged. “I thought about it for a moment. Thought it might have made me feel better, until I decided that nothing would make me feel good in that moment. It was hard.”

Brutal honesty. That was one of the steps in Tony’s recovery course and it was something that was still taking some getting used to. There was so much that Tony wanted to keep to himself and never admit, but he was learning that it was okay to open up.

Especially with somebody like Steve.

“I’m so proud of you.”

That was something else that had taken a long time to get used to. Tony wasn’t used to people being proud of him. Ashamed, sure. Angry, nearly all the time. But pride wasn’t an emotion that Tony was used to having directed at him. Until Steve had come along and changed everything.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Steve replied, honesty colouring his tone. “And I love you.” 

Tony stared at him in shock for a long moment, but the soft look on Steve’s face didn’t change. Thinking that he’d give Steve a chance to get out of it, Tony kept his eyes on Steve’s and furrowed his brow. “What did you say?” 

Clearly not taking the bait, Steve reached across the table and took Tony’s hand. “I love you.” 

Tony squeezed it back and swallowed, knees suddenly week and a whole different kind of shiver fluttering down his spine. “I love you too.”  

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [I have a tumbrl](https://s-horne.tumblr.com/)


End file.
